WHEN A FILMMAKER SAYS HE'S made a film "dealing with ideas" and
focusing on "the interplay between chaos and order," expectations
inevitably rise, since films with real ideas, much less ones that tackle
such a rich theme, are virtually absent from theaters these days. But it is
a sad reality that filmmaker Chris Shaw went astray somewhere during the
four years he worked on his debut film, Split. The film exhibits
every sign that Shaw succumbed to the seductive power of glitzy editing and
razzle-dazzle special-effects; as might be expected, his original ideas,
fascinating as they are, simply get lost in the kinetic audiovisual
assault.

The film's central characters, Starker (Timothy Dwight) and The Director
(Chris Shaw), epitomize the forces of chaos and order. Starker claims to
have captured the essence of independence and freedom and formulated it
into a powder, but he tends to be paranoic and more than a little unstable.
That's understandable, because a sinister organization, headed by The
Director, maintains omniscient surveillance over the entire city to
maintain order.

Naturally, The Director doesn't like the idea of Starker throwing a
monkey wrench into his iron grip, so he sends his robot-like underlings
after Starker. While running from these goons, Starker manages to fool
around with a cafe waitress, snort some Sweet and Low, give a wacko artist
(John Flynn) a whiff of what his freedom powder can do, and sleep with a
woman (Joan Bechtel) whom he apparently used to know. By this time, The
Director's minions have tracked down Starker. Starker keeps running until
he finally has to engage his mortal enemy, which makes up the climax and
ends the film.

During all of this, the film features some bizarre set designs and a lot
of terribly fancy special effects, many of them based on computerized
representations of the branch of physics known as chaos theory (including
Lorentz transformations, chaos transformations, and the like). The editing
is hyperkinetic, images are reversed, multiplied, superimposed, or
otherwise manipulated, and the soundtrack consists of appropriately
synthesized sound effects and music on top of the often incoherent
dialogue. This keeps up for the bulk of the film's 85-minute running time,
and indeed seems to be the film's biggest selling point.

There's no doubt that the combination of all these elements is always
dazzling, since it constantly spits out something new for the viewer to
digest. However, the audiovisual barrage that causes the film to work on a
"wow, isn't that neat" level is precisely what crowds out the central
conflict and prevents the film from working on deeper levels.

For example, Starker retreats two or three times into what appears to be
a painted mouth of a fearsome monster, complete with large white teeth. He
seems thoroughly depressed and discouraged in these scenes, and at one
point tears roll down his cheek. The most that can be readily gleaned from
these short scenes is a vague sense that Starker has retreated into a
psychological hole of some sort. After the screening, Shaw explained that
the painted mouth is indeed Starker's psychological retreat, where he
questions whether all that's happening is real or not. He's crying because
he can't reconcile the similarities between reality and delusion. Put this
way, the scene begins to make some sense. But the film does not convey this
impression on its own; without Shaw's elucidation, it seems impenetrably
obscure.

The last time Starker is shown in this state, a female goon from The
Director shows up. Starker jumps into action, and after a moment or two of
blurred and confusing images, he is suddenly shown running down an alley,
with virtually no indication of how he managed to evade the goon.

Fortunately, Shaw happened to be present after the screening, and he
explained that the painted mouth is indeed Starker's psychological retreat,
where he questions whether all that's happening is real or not. He's crying
because he can't reconcile the similarities between reality and delusion,
and the arrival of the female goon is what settles the question for him and
triggers him into action. Put this way, the scene begins to make some
sense. But the film does not convey this impression on its own; without
Shaw's elucidation, it seems impenetrably obscure.

It's a shame that much of the film is similarly vague, because in
three face-to-face meetings Shaw demonstrated that he could indeed express
his ideas on chaos and order articulately and intelligently. At 41 years of
age, he seems to have built on his memories of the 1960s by embracing the
best elements of that decade's anti-authoritarian attitudes while eschewing
the self-destructive excesses of the time. During the 1970s, he wrote some
highly regarded mathematical textbooks, dabbled in painting, and ended up
traveling through India for a while. So it's hardly surprising that he
describes the motivating idea behind Split as pushing "the value of
allowing a chaotic element in your life ... [which is] anything that breaks
your standard pattern."

That is, of course, exactly the healthy attitude that has opened doors
for many a creative filmmaker trying to revolutionize his art. But in this
film, the attitude is turned on its head -- and the primary culprit is the
film's flashy, hyperkinetic editing.

Rapid editing is hardly a new phenomenon, of course. Soviet filmmakers like
Sergei Eisenstein, Vladimir Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov pioneered theories
of rapid montage way back in the 1920s, and sophisticated kinetic editing
continues to exist today in avant-garde films by (among others) Stan
Brakhage, Warren Sonbert, and Robert Fulton as well as in feature films
like Pink Floyd The Wall and A Clockwork Orange.

In all of these films, the editing is a central component that is
conceived and executed throughout the filmmaking process. In the case of
Split, however, the editing's conception is good -- to introduce a "chaotic
element" -- but the execution is faulty.

At one point, for example, Starker gets frustrated trying to turn off
a blaring smoke alarm. The camera first shows him from behind, in a medium
shot. Just as Starker begins to smash the alarm, the film alternates very
rapidly between this medium shot and a closeup of his hand striking the
alarm.

Because this montage lasts less than a second, the sudden cuts are indeed
jolting. But rather than contributing to the film's central conflict
between order and chaos, the montage seems gratuitously thrown in to insure
that audiences don't get bored during a relatively calm moment. At its
worst, flashy editing can degenerate into mindless images strung together
MTV-style. This film never actually falls into this trap, but it comes
dangerously close on a number of occasions. Had the film offered a better
balance of sophisticated kinetic editing and striking imagery -- as
epitomized by Alan Parker's Pink Floyd: The Wall and Stanley
Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange -- Shaw's editing would no longer
remain the weak link that it currently is.

Another element of concern arises just after the wacko artist takes a
whiff of Starker's freedom powder. As the wacko artist suddenly finds
himself on a sandy beach, Shaw includes footage of a fully-nude woman
arching her body into strange and wonderful shapes. Again, it is precisely
because the sequence has no readily discernable relation to the film's
central theme that one is hard put to describe any reason for the woman's
presence. Shaw himself said in one conversation that he doesn't like
science fiction since "women are bimbosIs it bimbos or bimboes?" in most
stories that he's read. So one can only wonder why Shaw decided to show
full-frontal nudity of a woman who does nothing more than drop a smooth,
rounded rock into the hands of the wacko artist. Shaw should have made the
sequence more clear, given the nude woman more of a role, or, at the very
least, included seemingly sexist footage of nude men as well.

Split has been compared to Alex Cox's Repo Man, but in reality
only the first 15 minutes or so of Split bears any resemblance. The
bulk of the film has a style of its own and should be judged on its own
merits.

Doing just that, one finds that Split has some fascinating ideas
at its core, as well as a whole new category of special effects (designed
by Robert Shaw, Chris' brother). Although the film is crippled by some
serious flaws, this introduction to Chris Shaw puts him on the map and
shows promise for his future efforts. He mentioned in one interview that
his next film will not feature fancy special effects and that it will be
more like the type of films he eventually wants to make. (Asked why he then
chose to employ these special effects to tell his story in Split,
Shaw replied that it "would have been stupid not to take advantage of" his
brother's expertise and other resources that were readily available to
him.) If Shaw can give creative expression to his ideas and let more of his
genuinely appealing persona shine through, he will be well on his way to
delivering on the promise apparent in his debut film.